Natasha Lomas

Natasha is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining September 2012, based out of London. She arrives after a stint reviewing smartphones for CNET UK and, prior to that, more than five years covering business technology for silicon.com (now folded into TechRepublic.com). At silicon she focused on mobile and wireless, telecoms and networking, and IT skills issues, and has also freelanced for organisations including the Guardian and the BBC. Natasha studied English at Cambridge University, and also holds an MA from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Latest from Natasha Lomas

Instagram’s narcissistic obsession with selfies has been well-documented. Turns out it’s also contagious — if you’re in the business of trying to build a rival social property. In an update to its iOS app mobile messaging startup just.me has added a selfie message type and filters. The move underlines how messaging, photo-sharing and social networking continue… Read More

The Sensoria Smart Sock Fitness Tracker tracks your steps and advises on running style by doing real-time gait analysis using a combination of a pair of socks containing pressure sensors so it can figure out which bits of your foot are taking the weight as you run, plus a clip-on Bluetooth 4.0 device that attaches to the ankle of the sock and contains an accelerometer to grab stride data. Read More

Crowdsourced cell phone signal startup OpenSignal has crunched data on 682,000 devices using its app to produce a visualisation of the diversity of the Android ecosystem. And despite showing growing device diversity — and/or fragmentation, if you prefer to think of it that way — the data brings home how dominant Samsung continues to be in the Android space. Read More

NFC-powered door locks are already a thing. But NFC is not the only transfer tech capable of powering a smart lock. Unikey has come up with a system that uses Bluetooth 4.0 to turn compatible smartphones into keys. Their version of the smart lock — called Kevo — doesn’t require the phone to be tapped to the lock. Rather the phone-owner touches the lock with a finger to… Read More

No surprise: HTC’s run of declining quarters is predicted to continue. But the dip now looks set to push into the red in Q3. The Android mobile maker has just issued guidance for Q3, warning investors it’s expecting a loss of between 0% and -8% in the coming quarter. Its Q3 revenue is expected to be in the range of NT$50bn ($1.7bn) to NT$60bn ($2bn). Read More

Right now Google Glass sits at the apogee of geeky, wearable technology. Last month, interviewing a Glass-wearing Robert Scoble, Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman memorably debunked it in his opening question as “that thing on your head. ” Getting non-techie people to view Glass as anything other than ludicrously geeky is going to be an uphill fight for Google.
Arguably, though… Read More

The first mobile devices running Firefox OS are out in the market. It’s too early to say how well Mozilla’s fledgling open web HTML5 mobile platform is doing in its bid to steer budget buyers away from Android gateway devices. Which is, make no mistake, exactly the hope of the carriers throwing their weight and influence behind this alternative open platform. Read More

Connected gizmos for dogs are having a moment, thanks to the likes of FitBark and other canine activity trackers. But here’s a connected gadget designed for dog owners to interact with their pet, rather than keep tabs on its health. Indeed, overuse of the PetziConnect’s treat dispenser feature may require some kind of health monitoring tech so push the treat button with caution. Read More

More proof, if proof were needed, that Apple needs a low cost iPhone to get its smartphone momentum mojo back: Cupertino’s share of the global smartphone market fell to its lowest for three years in Q2, with just 31.2 million iPhones shipped in the quarter and Apple’s second place ranking declining to a 14% market share — this despite the overall smartphone market growing… Read More

Bored of quantifying your self already? Why not quantify your pet instead? FitBark is a Fitbit style health tracker for your under-walked canine companion. We’ve covered this (frankly) barking mad gizmo before, back in May, when its creators were exhibiting at Hardware Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt NY but they’ve now taken to Kickstarter to raise funds to get the device out in the wild. Read More

It’s been more than a week and Apple’s developer website is still down, following what turned out to be a hacking breach (which may or may not have been caused by a 25-year-old Turkish security researcher). Apple has now emailed iOS developers with an update on the situation. It’s also created a status page to show which services have been restored — the vast majority… Read More

Spanish open hardware phone platform manufacturer Geeksphone, which created the first developer preview devices for Mozilla’s Firefox OS (aka Peak and Keon), has announced it’s now taking pre-orders for a new beefed up consumer version of its Peak smartphone that it’s called Peak+. Read More

The Irish Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has responded to two of the complaints filed last month by the Europe v Facebook (evf) campaign group against several U.S. technology companies for alleged collaboration with the NSA’s Prism data collection program. Responding specifically to complaints against Apple and Facebook, it takes the view that there’s no complaint… Read More

Tile, a connected objects startup that’s trying to fix the problem of finding lost property with a Bluetooth tags plus app combo, has raised a massive $2.6M via its Selfstarter crowdfunding campaign. The funding considerably beefs up the $200,000 Tile gained from being incubated out of Silicon Valley mobile accelerator Tandem Capital. It’s also a massive 130x bump on its… Read More

3D printers generally have a pretty large footprint, so it was likely only a matter of time before someone decided to work on shrinking one to the point of portability. Just, well, because. Meet Bukito: a “take it everywhere” extruder 3D printer which has already doubled its original Kickstarter funding goal of $54,000 with 10 days still left to run on the campaign. Read More

Mobile card reader startup iZettle has decided to shift the goal posts by launching a new per transaction pricing structure that means its fee can fall as low as 1.5%, depending on the monthly sales volume of each business. This compares to the flat 2.75% fee charged by European rivals such as Payleven and SumUp. Read More

The motion-sensing Leap Motion Controller, which lets users eschew the traditional keyboard plus mouse combo and interact with their computers via gestures, started shipping to pre-order consumers this week. Apps with Leap Motion support are, as you’d expect, relatively thin on the ground at this point. But here’s an app offering a keyboardless way to type. Read More

Most people need to communicate at regular intervals — which is the driving force behind the rise and rise of mobile messaging apps. Far fewer people feel a similar imperative to regularly broadcast their location. Or tether their communications to a particular location. That’s got ‘niche use-case’ written all over it. Yet proximity social network startups are still… Read More

The tech world may be hoping for Apple to unbox some wearable technology in the near future but who cares about the iWatch when an NFC ring is a thing? NFC fans hankering for the convenience of having the wireless transfer tech always on their person should point their eyes at this U.K.-based Kickstarter project. Read More